Fight Game By KWild
by crystal.ward.9083
Summary: Gypsy fighter Freedom Smith lives by his fists: It's in his blood - in the mutant gene passed down from his triple-great granddaddy. So when Freedom gets jammed up with the cop, he cuts a deal to go undercover - and underground - to spy on a high-tech fight club.


I was halfway down the drainpipe, hanging on for dear life. I couldn't go any farther because there was a policewomen down below, nailing a poster to the wall. I'd seen the same thing pinned up all over town, asking for information about this johnny guy.

It was past midnight, so it was just my bad luck to run into the policewomen. And even though I swear to God I wasn't up to anything bad, it didn't look good for a Gypsy boy to be shinning down the nineteenth-century drainpipe of the cathedral.

I'd been up on the roof, but only so's I could sit on the highest ledge and eat my take out Chicken Balti and Peshwari Nan with only the gargoyles and the stars for company. This combined my two favorite pastimes; climbing the highest thing I can find and eating chilies. But you can bet that if the policewomen saw me coming down, she'd think I'd been up there after the lead or something .

I'd got a good grip on the pipe, the sort monkeys use on tree trunks when they're climbing. It meant my feet acting like another pair of hands, so I could hold on for a while longer without moving, but not forever. I was already losing the skin on my palms to the rusted iron of the pipe. So to take my mind off my predicament, I began thinking about my mammy'd do if I got lost. I don't think she'd sit back and rely on posters; traveler kids are like little princes and princesses. If you don't believe me just go to a Gypsy wedding and see them all in their D&G Junior,with their mammies and daddies watching them with doting eyes. Gypsy families are so close-knit, there's never a chance to stray.

I shifted my grip slightly. Another cop had joined the policewomen and they were standing talking. Jeez, didn't they have any crooks to chase?

"Johnny Sparrow? Is he one of the Sparowski Corporation Sparrows?" said the cop, nodding at the poster.

"Yep, the only son," said the policewomen. "Ran away from boarding school. Last seen living rough near the park. Poor little rich boy, right?"

I let go with one hand and shook it to get some life back in it. This Johnny Sparrow should have been a traveler boy - then he wouldn't have to run away from school I'm almost sixteen and I've hardly seen the inside of a school since I was eleven. At eleven we go out with our dads and learn something useful like a trade, instead of sitting behind a desk all day long. It's not that our parents don't want us educated: If we could afford private tutors, then I swear we'd all have degrees and letters after our names. They just don't like us out of their sight. As I said, we don't get lost, not like this Johnny Sparrow.

There was a _crack_ and the nineteenth-century pipe left the wall by a couple of inches. Bits of brick showered down. I made myself light. I swear, if I'm desperate enough I can nearly hover when I want to. It's not magic, it's how you spread your weight; just a tiny movement can shift your weight; just a monkey thing again; just watch them, they're the masters.

"What the -?" The cop brushed brick dust from his shoulder.

"What's up?"

"Thought I heard something up there."

I froze. The cop was squinting up through the darkness. If he shone a flashlight, he'd see me straightaway. The world stopped and my fate hung in the balance. All that happened after that - my life getting tangled with Johnny"s, the girl, the cops, and the fighting - none of it would have happened if he'd shone his flashlight upward. My life was at a crossroads, but I didn't know it then.

"Want to check it out?"

"Nah, let's go and visit All-Night Ned's and get a cuppa."

The world started spinning again, and my path was set. I gave it a couple of minutes, then dropped down the last twenty feet or so and legged it back to the trailers, taking the scenic route - which meant running along walls and across low roofs and not touching the ground at all. It might be dangerous, but it's my preferred method of crossing town. I blame it on one of my ancestors, a fighting man by the name of Hercules Smith. He's the reason I'm a freak


End file.
